The worst feeling in the world

This was freshman year, I'll never forget it. I had just been entered into AISD's system with my name spelled backwards and had chosen all of my classes for the year. Straight out of private school, this was going to be easy. I was totally right. Well I guess freshman year was easy for everyone, but I can only remember it as being a time of going to school, coming home and having more free time than a housewife.
One class I had taken that was a prerequisite for seniors at the time was Business Information Management (BIM). It was a pretty useful class and I learned a lot from it. The entire class was taken on a computer in a room filled of computers and computers only. No one talked in that class and no one knew each other. The seats we sat in on the first day were our seats for the entire year and I was stuck sitting next to the dumb girl. She didn't talk to me, played loud music, and belonged at Crockett High School (like a 2003 Crockett High School). 

I also had the worst feeling in the world whenever she walked in and sat down. This was because she copied everything I did. Not my style or anything, no one can copy that. But she copied everything I did in that class to be creative. Whenever it came to making a cool brochure or a sweet powerpoint, she would eye her way onto my screen and do the exact same thing. How did I know this? Because I would eye my way back onto her screen. So everyday of my freshman year I would have to get to that class early to tilt my screen out of her vision, but not so much that it's obvious. It was the first real time someone had stole my ideas, and this one was right in front of me. It's not like my work was going to Newsweek or anything, but they were my ideas. And I've heard it all before, "you aren't going to get anywhere complaining about your stolen ideas, so let them steal". So one day  I stopped complaining about my ideas being stolen and did something about it.
I broke her nose.
No I didn't really do that, but instead I started to bring one of those plastic tinted screens you would find at a bank to class. She eventually failed and maybe didn't even graduate, but that was the last time she ever stole an idea from me.

How To: Texting Etiquitte and other rules

In this segment of How To, I will be covering the basics of things I believe everyone should know and how to approach things in public because there are just too many people who don't know how to tie their shoes, but even more that can't have a normal conversation. But anyway, here are some things I thought long and hard of that you should know.

1. If you see someone in public, you don't have to talk to them. 
There's always a time when you're at an event or buying egg nog or whatever (it's already in stores), and you'll run into someone you only kind of know. Here at Elias & Friends it happens all the time. But you always feel like you have to talk to them about how they're doing or what they're doing or talk even though you've never talked before. Well guess what, all you have to do is say hello and that's it. They probably don't care to talk to you anyway so grab your egg nog and get the hell outta there!

2. The "person is typing" bubble does not entitle you to a message back. 
There was the "Read at" and "last seen" and then there's the typing bubble you'll see on iPhones. Believe it or not, there's no way they didn't read your text even if they opened it and read your message. So if you send a message and they read it, almost send something back, but don't, oh well.

3. A dinner is a date, a movie is not.
Sixth grade was a long time ago, it's time to set some higher standards. Now, this applies to more of a first date thing. I mean you're not even looking at the person. I can do that with someone for free. We'll just sit in chairs looking at a wall for a few hours and call it a date.


4. If you're going to text and walk, don't walk.
Whenever I see someone walking and texting at the same time, I can't feel sorry for them if they run into a wall. They're so slow, they hog up other people's walking space and assume we're going to move out of their way. If you're going to text and walk, do it out of the walking traffic. Quick texts are okay, long conversations are not.

5. There's a cutoff time for starting a conversation.
Whenever you decide to start a conversation texting another person, you have to remember the texting cutoff times. Sure, you could send someone a text at 3am asking whats up, but it would make you look a little weird. Only unless you know that person is awake, then you can start a conversation. But the cutoff time to start chatting is 11:30pm. And texting conversations may only last up to one hour (consecutive) or ten messages sent. Any longer than that you might as well call them. Weekends cutoff time is midnight.

6. If they're in your contacts, you must say hi.
Social media or contacts in your phone is not some other world you live in like Avatar, so if you see someone you know and they're in your contacts or connected through social media in some way, you can't snub them and keep walking. You can either talk, or refer to rule #1.

An Open Letter to Doormen

Dear Doormen,

Hi, my name is Elias and I am contacting you regarding your friend, another doorman. I did not have such a great experience with you guys and I now have mental anguish because of it. It's really not that bad, and I'm not going to commit any hate crimes against doormen, but I see how you guys are now.
Like for one, I know you always need a tip, but there's a limit on how much I can tip you.

For example, when you take my bags to my room, why do you expect me to be so generous as to give you a crazy tip that will make you quit your job? If everyone gave you twenties you'd be making more money than me. It also depends where you are located to be a doorman. If you're in Austin, the minimum tip amount I believe you should be receiving is no less than five dollars and no more than ten dollars as the maximum tip amount per bag per trip to the room. This is only in luxury hotels, no La Quintas.Unless it's Christmas and I'm Donald Trump, you're not getting any twenties from me. I can carry my own bags thank you very much. I hope I'm not offending you, it's just that you're a bit more needy than I am and as guest, we don't really need much except maybe the pass code to the swimming pool and what channel HBO is on. There are only certain instances in where I would be provoked to give you more. For example, if a doorman has some sort of nice conversation with me or just looks like a cool guy and we share a laugh, of course I cant leave him hanging there with five bucks.

When it comes down to it, you guys aren't much different from your distant valet parking cousins who take care of your car, which I think is a lot more important than rolling a suitcase. Now those guys carry much more value to me than doormen. Sorry, but they do and you know it's true. It's for a much shorter time and you don't really see them, but deep down you have a greater trust in them than most people which in turn if you're not the valet guys from Ferris Bueller, I can show a greater appreciation for. It's not you, it's me. So the next time we meet, I hope you'll remember these things, and just be cool with it. I know it's your job, but that doesn't mean make it a job. Just hold the damn door.

With Much Thought,

Your Favorite Hotel Guest, Elias

What it's like to be a bike mechanic

I got asked the other day what I do for a living and I told them I do homework and go to school. But I also work as a bicycle mechanic sometimes too. So I'm going to share a little bit about what I actually do as a bike mechanic.

I started working there two summers ago, and mainly during summers. The shop opens at 10 and usually everyone gets there about 9:45 because they had just gotten back from a ride and need to shower and do whatever before we open. But I won't focus on them as much.
So most mornings, I make sure everything looks good, normal stuff. Sometimes someone will be making coffee or if the Tour de France is on, we'll be watching that. What I do besides being a mechanic is everything else and everything no one else wants to do. I've done just about everything there is to do in a bike shop environment (except clean the bathrooms, I'm not into that). Some days I'll just be stocking things for a large part of the day and talking to customers about Lance Armstrong, assuming I know what he's up to recently because they can't relate bicycles to anything else. Or some days I'll be on a lunch run on a bike, those are always fun. One of the weirdest things I've had to deal with though is during my summer working there, a woman had walked in with a bike, completely painted white and asked if I could fix it up. She looked like a student at UT and was probably the most desperate person I've ever seen in my life. It was one of those 'ghost bikes' you see on the side of the road with some flowers and a picture of the person that had died. She brought in a ghost bike. I really didn't know what to do. I stood there staring at the bike, unsure of what to tell the woman. It's pretty much like someone giving you a smelly body bag and asking if you can clean it for them. Not saying she killed the guy, but same concept.

"Do you think you can fix this? I need to get around."

On other days, I'll be changing the lightbulbs in the most hard to reach places, testing out bikes, re-arranging anything that can be re-arranged, once to the point of renovating the entire bike shop.

A lot of the time it gets boring, except for Saturdays and Sundays, those days are crazy. People will come in with bikes, wheels, children, dogs, questions, wanting to rent bikes, wanting to know what Lance Armstrong is up to these days, wanting to know if they can do this on their bike, wanting to know how much this will cost, asking if we sell bikes here, and the thing I hate most, asking if they can speak to someone else.

I usually get that a lot, almost every day I'm working there "Is there someone else I can talk to about this?" or "Wait, do you work here?" or hesitating to trust me with their bike.

Yes, I do work here and no, there is no one else you can talk to.
But it's not that bad, I've actually had someone say they prefer having me work on their bike when they bring it in, now that's cool.

I didn't touch on everything, but there's a little bit about what I do as a bike mechanic. 

Is being a local such a bad thing?

As I was walking in Whole Foods today buying organic organics in the organic section, I noticed a man who was wearing a shirt that read "I AM A LOCAL" in bold letters and then had a clothing company's name in Austin along the bottom of the shirt. And I guess it's something to be proud of, but the way it was worn by that guy made it look like everyone else would say something like "Yeah, so what?". Or how everyone else encourages others not to move here with the most pretentious intentions. But it's really not such a bad thing. So many people come to Austin and what are you going to do about it? Get over it. Austin is no longer a secret. Because of all this, being a local isn't really a big deal.There's at least 700,000 people who are just like any other local in Austin. It's almost the same as saying you're a local in New York City; it doesn't entitle you to anything at all.

They're not even locals yet.

And it's so hard to not be a local when you are a local and other "locals" are doing things that actual  locals have been doing forever. That's when you spot a fake local.

Fake local: (Noun) - Someone who claims to be a local to a city when they've only been living for less than ten-ish years, or has the newest area code, or cannot pronounce street names correctly, or is a student living in a city only for school.

And for being an adult, and voting and stuff now, I still don't think I'm really a local. And you know what else, no one is really a local. For it to be true, you can only really call yourself a local in the final seconds before your death. Only then can people recognize it and spot a true local. It's like saying you're on the distinguished plan in high school, but still on the recommended plan until the very last day when a counselor will decide whether or not that student meets the requirements for being on the distinguished plan. Same deal.

So the next time someone calls themselves a local, you'll know that they're faking it.

Then and Now: Coffee

In my younger more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Coffee stunts your growth. Now I'm much older and wiser and drink coffee when I need to, but not as a morning routine. My dad is shorter than me, and I'm short. But my mom is shorter than my dad, so who am I? Coffee (thats a math joke). But then I look around at the rest of my family, and they're short too. It's almost like I'm Snow White and the more than Seven Dwarfs. Then I come to school and I'm the shortest of the group. But anyway, I googled my burning question and it turns out the be false. What a relief, now I can drink coffee by the gallon. But coffee is much more prevalent in my environment than it should be. I see it everywhere in the mornings, I see it in advertisements, I see it where I work to be used as more of a drug than anything else, I see it as birthday presents, and even in my own hands. But one thing I just haven't gotten a hold of, Starbucks. I just don't get it. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before, so I won't go into my problems with Starbucks. So I've slowly been slipping into this whole coffee fad, and then I've noticed my teeth are looking a lot less white than they used to. So I stopped. Now I only take coffee in from an IV, and it seems to be working out pretty well. Just kidding, but I did slow it down to about a cup every other day, mostly at night. From what used to be something I saw as not very attractive to my five year old self is now something I use to my advantage. I use it for cycling, which makes a huge difference from winning and losing, but of course not around NICA, which bans the use of caffeine in cycling. I caught on to that from a friend who's a world champion in mountain biking and he drinks it religiously. In any other case I use it for late nights when I need to stay up. Mornings and coffee don't mix with me, just because it's too mainstream. Coffee as a drink is as far as I am going  to take it, no more no less. Not art, not as a present, not as a lifestyle, but as a drink that I drink. But there are certain situations when coffee becomes a part of a lifestyle, unconsciously. Like if someone asks "Well would you like to come upstairs for some coffee?" or "Hey maybe we can go out for coffee sometime".

You see, tea drinkers lives are much more simplified, that's why I sometimes prefer tea over coffee (unless it's social, then I go to coffee). Because tea is not as flamboyant as coffee. Coffee has more friends than tea because tea has only two friends, Green and Black. But tea can always make amends for  more friends, because if the Brits can do it so can we (just don't add milk).

Note: I am not a pretentious coffee or tea drinker. I'll even microwave my instant coffee to prove it. 

Elias & Friends Season Three 2014-2015

Season Three of Elias and Friends Beginning September-ish 2014

Kidnapped all of Late Night's sketch-comedy writers. This year is gonna be great.